


Nilwen Stories Collection: Borg Nanoprobes (Star Trek)

by Infinimine



Series: Nilwen Collection [2]
Category: Original Work, Star Trek
Genre: Curiosity, Cyborgs, Genetics, Other, Robots, Star Trek References, Technobabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26341150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Infinimine/pseuds/Infinimine
Summary: Nilwen, the multiverse wanderer, comes across a mysterious starship wreck in deep space...
Series: Nilwen Collection [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1914094





	Nilwen Stories Collection: Borg Nanoprobes (Star Trek)

**Borg Nanoprobes (Star Trek)**

The Milky Way Galaxy, was the homestead of humankind in the vast majority of universes Nilwen had travelled. During his excursions he had recently encountered the remnants of a starship whose technology and design was unfamiliar to him on a barren, rocky world within one variation of this galaxy. He put together a team to help excavate the wreckage immediately, his curiosity insatiable upon the discovery of anything utterly unknown to him.

It was about a week later that Nilwen’s mechanical drones handed him an electronic datapad detailing the full extent of the wreckage. Based on the fragments the initial ship was immense compared to most other starship designs he was aware of. The second and immediately strange detail was the vessel’s structure, which appeared to have originally been an almost perfect geometric cube interlaced with narrow, claustrophobic corridors. A massive internal explosion, likely caused by a warp drive overload, appeared to be the cause of the ship’s destruction. Nilwen accepted this conclusion as more data on the ship came in over the next few days.

To say the drones’ reports were startling was an understatement. The ship had all of its internal systems completely decentralized. In all likelihood the only exception to this had been the warp reactor because otherwise it seemed the ship would have been nearly impossible to destroy. Estimates came in that as much as 75% of the ship could have been rendered inoperable and its ability to function would only have been reduced by a third. Nilwen couldn’t believe the numbers, but his mechanical drones were the ones bringing it to him and these were not the ones he gave the ability to lie so he had to believe it was true or they were malfunctioning. He immediately checked the latter to no avail.

On the 12th day of the excavation, Drone 1966 delivered the news Nilwen had been waiting for since the excavation began.

“You found one of the ship’s crew?! I thought for sure they must have all been destroyed in the explosion, though admittedly I held out some hope. How did the body survive?” Nilwen asked, pulling his eyes away from the rather brief report on his datapad.

“We are still performing tests on the corpse but Drone 773’s initial conclusion was that the crew member was in a section of the far outer hull that had additional shielding. It's unknown why the crew member was alone in that section and why that section had more shielding to begin with.”

“Another mystery to add to the pile from this excavation. I want to examine the body myself. Has it been moved to one of the laboratories for examination?”

“Yes sir, a genetic analysis is being performed in Laboratory 1 and the body was placed into cold storage in Laboratory 2.”

“Excellent! Have the drones in lab 2 prepare for my arrival and make sure they bring me that genetic analysis as soon as it's completed,” said Nilwen, his voice filled with excitement at the prospect of finally getting some answers about this mysterious starship.

Nilwen put on his carefully-tailored spacesuit and made his way across the barren planetary surface to Laboratory 2, which he had placed on one of the edges of the site. As he walked he passed by dozens of his drones excavating sections of the wreckage, categorizing each piece, and taking it to be examined by one of the drones specialized in the category. Nilwen was happy to see them functioning so efficiently. Originally he had some concerns that whatever had caused the starship to wreck might damage his mechanical helpers, but quick scans revealed the planet to be an unremarkable rock, devoid of a magnetic field or anomalous radiation sources.

As the laboratory came into view just over a large, craggy rock outcropping, Nilwen occupied his mind thinking about what he had learned so far about the starship. The answer was surprisingly little considering he had been here almost two weeks. If the ship's computer systems and databases had survived he imagined most of his questions would have answers but it seemed that the explosion that blasted the ship apart also wiped or utterly destroyed its computer systems. There were traces of nanotechnology spread throughout the site but it seemed that they had actually self-destructed. One of the things Nilwen found especially curious was that the starship had no symbology anywhere in it, no insignia of some empire or regime, no text labelling mechanical components. It was almost as if its occupants had no use for language at all. A disconcerting, if fascinating, prospect to Nilwen who wondered how he could get along with a species or organization with no written language to decipher.

After his spacewalk through the lack of atmosphere he arrived at the modular metal structure that was laboratory 2. Anxious to finally see what the starship’s crew looked like, Nilwen stumbled over his spacesuit in the airlock in his haste. 

Several surgery drones, equipped with multiple appendages that ended in medical tools, were huddled around the body when he arrived. Immediately most of them moved aside so Nilwen could get a clear look. He did not really have a good idea of what to expect but what he saw was not it. The body looked human at a very passing glance but looking at it any longer revealed its obvious deviations. The skin was exceedingly pale and the veins visible beneath were a sickly silver color. Of course there was not much visible skin to begin with. Large sections of the body were substituted with cybernetics. Instead of clothing the individual was in a black metal bodysuit which seemed to directly link with the cybernetics in some places. Nilwen was not against cybernetics in principle, but these seemed almost haphazard, like what parts of the body that were replaced were chosen at random.

“Was it human?” Nilwen asked Drone 696, as the drone had been in charge of the autopsy. 

“Genetic tests tell us it is a carbon-based organism like humans, but no, sir, it is not human. From what we can tell it had more distinct facial structures that would have differentiated it from humans but these faded during the transformation,” said 696.

“Transformation?” That word surprised Nilwen. It seemed a very pointed word for the drone to use. Nilwen waited for the machine to continue its report, a hand to his chin in consideration. 

“This organism is infected with nanotechnology that radically rebuilt its entire body, replacing much of its systems with cybernetic components. At this moment only a few hundred of these ‘nanoprobes’ seem to still be functioning within the corpse. They were in the process of repairing the body’s tissue when we disabled and extracted them for isolated study,” he handed a metal container to Nilwen that contained these probes.

“Sir, it's my estimate that they would have successfully resuscitated their host if we had not removed them. Finally, we found the faintest hint of scar tissue around the neck. Puncture wounds where the nanoprobes were injected. I do not like to give you uncertain results but it's my best conclusion he was injected against his will, possibly as recently as a few weeks before the ship was destroyed. Finally,...” 696 paused for a moment, extracting a small mechanical component from a compartment in its torso, “we found this inside the cranial cavity. It appears to be a subspace transceiver allowing for faster-than-light communication directly from one mind to another. Based on our database and my experience dissecting hive-mind biological organisms, I think this component was likely inside every member on the starship. An artificially-created hive mind, all its members merely components to the larger whole. The rest of the hive mind, assuming it was not just this starship, are likely aware of the ship’s destruction, if not its location.”

Nilwen took in all of this quickly but he remained silent, his enthusiasm evaporating and quickly replaced with dread. The prospect of a species capable of such advanced, invasive technology and no moral quandary forcing it upon the unwilling was terrifying. In the moment Nilwen made a quick decision.

“I want the corpse vaporized and every facility screened for this nanotechnology. If it is capable of co-opting technology as well as biological systems I don’t want the drones to be compromised. Take final scans of all the wreckage. Then begin deconstructing all of our pop-up facilities. We are leaving immediately. We can’t risk being here if another ship arrives. Put these extracted probes under heavy quarantine.” Nilwen returned the container to 696 before turning to relay his orders to the others in the room. 

The air hung heavy with silence, and in Nilwen’s case, something he had not felt for some time in his travels. Fear.


End file.
